Got another chapter!
Title: Fishtailing (7/13)
Verse: G1 AU
Rating: PG-13/T
Characters: Prowl, Jazz, Sunstreaker, ensemble
Warnings: none
Summary: Fishtailing: when the driver of the car loses control and the end swerves side to side; like their lives that, due to poor past decisions, spun out of control, and now they were just along for the ride.
Notes: So this chapter was a long time in coming, so much for my thinking that it would be easier to write. That it actually took this long to finish is really irritating for me, but I’m absolutely determined to finish this thing. Feedback is always appreciated.
Chap 1 Chap 2 Chap 3 Chap 4 Chap 5 Chap 6
“One more point of contention,
I need some intervention
Approached with vague intentions
betray my short attention span
The distance, bridge the border
Beg forgiveness, round the corner”
- “Everytime I look for You” - Blink 182
Jazz walked through his front door and resisted the urge to slam his helm into the wall.
It had been meta-cycles, since Barricade’s arrest, since Jazz had even seen Barricade, since Jazz had found the flaws in the sentencing of Barricade.
But no one listened.
Not the enforcers in charge of the case, not the lawyers who were supposed to be defending Barricade, if they even existed, which Jazz sincerely doubted. Nothing about Barricade’s sentencing made any sense if someone took a close look at them. There were too many inconsistencies that just didn’t add up like the sentencing of the others’ did, the only other mech’s charges that came close to being odd was Backbite’s. The mech was charged and convicted of public indecency and vandalism, which - while right up Backbite’s alley - did not really fit in with the charges of dark energon and weapon smuggling that the others that had been hauled in had been charged.
But not only was it hard for anyone to pay attention to information that Jazz found to be completely obvious, Barricade’s trial had come and gone with little notice, with Jazz only finding out after that the Praxian had been convicted and sent off to the prison on the outskirts of Praxus. Which left Jazz with evidence of a convicted mech’s innocence, feeling like his life had become some sort of sick twisted entertainment vid, with nothing to do with the evidence except try and get it to Barricade, whom he still had not actually seen since that one night cycle over a vorn ago.
So Jazz had gone to the prison, with the intents of using visiting hours to talk to Barricade, which so far as Jazz had figured that no one would really question, who would care about the jilted lover coming to complain and yell at the imprisoned mech?
Only, Jazz still couldn’t see Barricade, the guards never said anything bad was going on, so the first time Jazz shrugged it off, the second time, Jazz was a little suspicious, but now they had turned Jazz away a third time, which cemented the idea that Something Was Up. It left Jazz with two choices, either forget about Barricade all together and move on or help a mech that the system had turned against for seemingly no reason.
Exhaling loudly, Jazz moved to sit on his berth, and stared out the window, he knew which choice he would make, what option would let him recharge at night. Processor made up, Jazz laid down on the berth, he had a lot of planning to do, and it would go better after he had some recharge.
Two meta-cycles later, Jazz was all set to proceed with his plan.
It wasn’t his smartest plan, Jazz easily admitted, but it played with his strengths well enough that it would be simple to pull off, as long as he played it cool and pretended he was there for something else.
Jazz paused at the door of the room he was hidden in and steeling himself for what was to come, and briefly wondering how the pit a semi-sort-of romantic friendship he had going with a mech for a mere vorn would lead to this level of obsession. Jazz roughly pushed the thought aside, he could get his processor checked later, he needed to focus.
Jazz drove to the prison, steeling himself for what he was about to do. Hacking into the prison’s network had been a no go, making the only feasible way of getting the prison’s information on the case and Barricade’s condition, because there was no way something wasn’t wrong if Barricade had been denied visitors three times, was to take it directly from the source. Which was what Jazz was going to do.
Conveniently armed with a special delivery to the prison’s warden, Jazz would be able to get into the warden’s office and hopefully distract the warden long enough to get the information he needed.
At least that had been the plan.
As Jazz came into sight of the prison, going over different ideas that might work to draw the warden out of the office for a few breems a loud explosion rocked the surrounding area.
And the prison went up in flames.
By the end of the orn, the newsfeeds claimed that the attack had been by a group of extremists from Kaon, who had claimed that the prison was wrongfully imprisoning mechs. A point that Jazz could agree with as his difficulties trying to help Barricade lent itself well to that theory.
A few orns later, a list of “violent and dangerous” criminals who had escaped from the prison was released, cautioning the citizens of Praxus.
Barricade was not on the list, which could mean one of several things. One, he had escaped, but was not what the enforcers were classifying as “violent and dangerous”, which was definitely a good thing. Two, Barricade had been one of the prisoners who had been recaptured already; the second best option, though it put Jazz back at square one. Three, Barricade was not listed because he had died in the attack.
Jazz stared, unseeing, out of his apartment’s window, his fingers tapping a quick staccato on the arm of his chair.
“Let’s hope it’s one of the first two,” Jazz said his voice quiet. He then stood and began to get ready for the orn’s work shift.
At least with those two outcomes, Barricade was still alive.
===
At the sight of the incoming Decepticons, Sunstreaker was one of the first to react, pulling his gun out of subspace and firing, working his way from the stands to cover for the mechs that were on the track.
Sunstreaker could admit that it was a good tactic, concentrating the beginning of the attack on those racing, trying to take both the SIC and TIC out. So far, it looked like they might have been successful, which meant that the first order of business was to clear a path for Ratchet to get through. Sunstreaker absently noted Bluestreak’s location, standing guard over the evacuating humans while firing at the Decepticons.
As the mechs that had been on the track were those who were hit first in the surprise attack, Sunstreaker began to feel a muted horror begin to spread as minutes began to go by, and they had yet to hear anything from the mechs that had been obscured by the smoke. It was only quelled when Blaster cleared the airwaves from Soundwave’s interference and Prowl’s level voice was heard giving orders.
Sunstreaker punched Wildrider in the faceplate as Sideswipe came bounding out of the smoke, jump kicking the Decepticon away from him and his brother.
Sideswipe’s grin was wide as he locked optics with his twin.
“Ready for some jet judo, bro?” Sideswipe asked, and Sunstreaker’s return smile was more feral than his brother’s.
“Sounds fun,” Sunstreaker said, his optics scanning the sky. “I’ll take Skywarp.”
“Sure thing,” Sideswipe answered, grabbing the yellow mech and activating his jetpack, to boost into the sky.
Sideswipe could not have timed it any better, getting close enough to Skywarp that Sunstreaker was able to leap away and grab a purple wing tip just before the mech teleported.
It was always a rush hanging onto a mech that was simultaneously teleporting and performing all sorts of air maneuvers that was trying to get Sunstreaker to lose his grip and fall to the ground. Just when Sunstreaker had managed to move his grip to a more stable location on Skywarp’s chassis, Bluestreak’s name over his comm. line drew his attention to what was going on on the ground below.
Bluestreak was face-down on the ground with black smoke coming out from his doorwings. Bumblebee was calling for Ratchet over the comm. line, but they were still a mech short with Decepticons zeroing in on the weakened unit. Automatically Sunstreaker’s servos went about manipulating Skywarp’s wings to force him into a full dive towards the ground near the group of mechs to provide the needed back up and covering fire for Ratchet.
Sunstreaker was reassured by what he saw of the damage on Bluestreak, as it certainly did not look life threatening, but the younger mech was out, and considering how sensitive Sunstreaker knew doorwings were, it was probably for the best. So Sunstreaker focused on the battle, knowing he would have time to fret over the grey mech later, right then there were Decepticons to kill.
===
Jazz walked up the ramp into Skyfire’s hold, not willing to risk Ratchet’s wrath to chance transforming and driving back to the Ark. While the initial damage he had taken had hampered his transformation ability and caused his systems to reset, he had been fine enough to participate in the battle. Though his transformation to root mode before had been a choice between more damage from transforming or worse damage from the Decepticons firing on him sitting there in his alt mode. He chose more damage with the benefit of fighting back, which given the situation was understandable, but to do so again, needlessly? Jazz could do without the extra dents.
Jazz watched as Ratchet loaded Bluestreak up, strapping the gunner face down in order to not further damage the gunner’s doorwings. Prowl sat down next to Bluestreak once Ratchet moved aside, as there was nothing the medic could really do until they got back.
Once settled, Prowl glanced around the hold, his optics catching Jazz’s visor across from him. Jazz felt Prowl look him over for injuries.
“I’m fine,” Jazz said.
Prowl looked up somewhat startled at having been caught.
“Are you sure? You took a pretty bad hit on the track,” Prowl responded, and Jazz forced a smile, trying to make it as easy as he could.
“Nothin’ Ratch can’t fix,” Jazz said, only relaxing once Prowl seemed satisfied and turned his attention back to his injured brother.
Which, if Jazz really thought about it, it didn’t make sense, or at least it wasn’t in line with his recent thoughts about Prowl. Because while Prowl was a loyal and devoted caretaker to Bluestreak, Barricade had never mentioned a brother, or family of any sort. So there was no way that Prowl could be Barricade, no way at all, even if they raced the same, used the same tricks, and both had mentioned at some point that in Praxus it was expected for a mech to race on the tracks.
Jazz resisted the urge to curl into himself as thoughts and memories assaulted him. There was no need to worry anyone over something that Jazz should have gotten over a lifetime ago, so he offlined his visor, letting his helm rest against the wall of Skyfire’s hold, silencing his vocalizer and tried to comfort himself with reality.
The reality was, Praxus had been a large city, with a million native mechs, so it was not completely unlikely that the abilities and likes of some mechs were similar to others. The reality was that Prowl was a devoted older brother who raised Bluestreak and would not have abandoned and ignored his existence for more than 10 vorns being the lackey of a crime boss.
The reality was that Barricade was dead.
===
Sunstreaker waited outside of the medbay, watching the door passively while taking stock of the damage his finish had taken, calculating how much work it was going to take to get back its normal shine. He ignored everyone else who passed by, they were unimportant, and in Cliffjumper’s case, stupid, for going into Ratchet’s layer uninjured post-battle. Sunstreaker knew better than to risk what was left of his finish to go into the medbay and get in the way of the medics trying to save the ungrateful slaggers’ chassis. The only time Ratchet found it somewhat excusable was when it was a close family member or lover, neither of which was there in Sunstreaker’s case.
When the medbay door opened and Prowl stepped out into the hallway, Sunstreaker looked up from examining a large scrape on his leg.
“Prowl.”
“Sunstreaker,” Prowl answered, and glanced over Sunstreaker. “How are you functioning?”
“As well as anyone can expect with a slagged up finish,” Sunstreaker said, and then took a closer look at Prowl, noting the exhaustion dimmed optics and slightly lowered doorwings. “You look like you could use a good waxing too.”
Prowl doorwings twitched in surprise, and could not help at looking himself over.
“I suppose so,” Prowl replied with a bemused smile. “Though I hope you forgive me for putting off that waxing in favor of a good recharge.”
“Whatever.” Sunstreaker shrugged, mentally cringing at his own flippantness as he followed Prowl down the hall.
Prowl remained silent, letting Sunstreaker gather the words that he wanted to say with the calm patience that the tactician was so good at.
“Prowl, I’m sorry.”
Prowl looked back at Sunstreaker.
“What for?”
“Bluestreak got hurt, because I wasn’t able to get the seekers down fast enough,” Sunstreaker ground out, and Prowl shook his head.
“Bluestreak was one of those tasked with keeping track of the humans, you chose to help cover the command element and then took to the sky to ground the seekers, both were logical responses to the situation. So it is not anyone’s fault that Bluestreak, or any of the others, are injured today other than the mechs that attacked them. It is more of mine and Optimus’ shortcomings that we did not have a working plan in case what happened today occurred.”
Sunstreaker vented loudly.
“I told you that I’d protect your brother like you were protecting mine, it may have been a long time ago, but I still stand by that, Prowl,” Sunstreaker said, his voice quiet.
“For 10 vorns you were the best protector that Bluestreak could have had, and for that I’m thankful that you were there when I couldn’t be. But I will not hold you to a promise that was essentially over the moment Crasher was arrested,” Prowl answered, his voice equally soft.
Neither mech noticed the flaring visor of the mech around the corner that turned and walked away with shaking servos.
“Go fix your finish and recharge Sunstreaker, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Prowl said once they reached his quarters.
Sunstreaker turned to walk away, but paused as a thought occurred to him.
“You know, back in Praxus, Sideswipe kept saying that every time you raced with Jazz, something bad ended up happening. Looks like that’s happening here too.”
“Unfortunately that does sound accurate,” Prowl said a hollow laugh escaping the black and white mech. “Goodnight, Sunstreaker.”
“’Night,” Sunstreaker replied, watching the door close.
And the yellow mech wondered again, for the countless time, how much had he and his twin messed up the life of the first mech who had ever actually listened and cared enough to help them?
Verse: G1 AU
Rating: PG-13/T
Characters: Prowl, Jazz, Sunstreaker, ensemble
Warnings: none
Summary: Fishtailing: when the driver of the car loses control and the end swerves side to side; like their lives that, due to poor past decisions, spun out of control, and now they were just along for the ride.
Notes: So this chapter was a long time in coming, so much for my thinking that it would be easier to write. That it actually took this long to finish is really irritating for me, but I’m absolutely determined to finish this thing. Feedback is always appreciated.
Chap 1 Chap 2 Chap 3 Chap 4 Chap 5 Chap 6
“One more point of contention,
I need some intervention
Approached with vague intentions
betray my short attention span
The distance, bridge the border
Beg forgiveness, round the corner”
- “Everytime I look for You” - Blink 182
Jazz walked through his front door and resisted the urge to slam his helm into the wall.
It had been meta-cycles, since Barricade’s arrest, since Jazz had even seen Barricade, since Jazz had found the flaws in the sentencing of Barricade.
But no one listened.
Not the enforcers in charge of the case, not the lawyers who were supposed to be defending Barricade, if they even existed, which Jazz sincerely doubted. Nothing about Barricade’s sentencing made any sense if someone took a close look at them. There were too many inconsistencies that just didn’t add up like the sentencing of the others’ did, the only other mech’s charges that came close to being odd was Backbite’s. The mech was charged and convicted of public indecency and vandalism, which - while right up Backbite’s alley - did not really fit in with the charges of dark energon and weapon smuggling that the others that had been hauled in had been charged.
But not only was it hard for anyone to pay attention to information that Jazz found to be completely obvious, Barricade’s trial had come and gone with little notice, with Jazz only finding out after that the Praxian had been convicted and sent off to the prison on the outskirts of Praxus. Which left Jazz with evidence of a convicted mech’s innocence, feeling like his life had become some sort of sick twisted entertainment vid, with nothing to do with the evidence except try and get it to Barricade, whom he still had not actually seen since that one night cycle over a vorn ago.
So Jazz had gone to the prison, with the intents of using visiting hours to talk to Barricade, which so far as Jazz had figured that no one would really question, who would care about the jilted lover coming to complain and yell at the imprisoned mech?
Only, Jazz still couldn’t see Barricade, the guards never said anything bad was going on, so the first time Jazz shrugged it off, the second time, Jazz was a little suspicious, but now they had turned Jazz away a third time, which cemented the idea that Something Was Up. It left Jazz with two choices, either forget about Barricade all together and move on or help a mech that the system had turned against for seemingly no reason.
Exhaling loudly, Jazz moved to sit on his berth, and stared out the window, he knew which choice he would make, what option would let him recharge at night. Processor made up, Jazz laid down on the berth, he had a lot of planning to do, and it would go better after he had some recharge.
Two meta-cycles later, Jazz was all set to proceed with his plan.
It wasn’t his smartest plan, Jazz easily admitted, but it played with his strengths well enough that it would be simple to pull off, as long as he played it cool and pretended he was there for something else.
Jazz paused at the door of the room he was hidden in and steeling himself for what was to come, and briefly wondering how the pit a semi-sort-of romantic friendship he had going with a mech for a mere vorn would lead to this level of obsession. Jazz roughly pushed the thought aside, he could get his processor checked later, he needed to focus.
Jazz drove to the prison, steeling himself for what he was about to do. Hacking into the prison’s network had been a no go, making the only feasible way of getting the prison’s information on the case and Barricade’s condition, because there was no way something wasn’t wrong if Barricade had been denied visitors three times, was to take it directly from the source. Which was what Jazz was going to do.
Conveniently armed with a special delivery to the prison’s warden, Jazz would be able to get into the warden’s office and hopefully distract the warden long enough to get the information he needed.
At least that had been the plan.
As Jazz came into sight of the prison, going over different ideas that might work to draw the warden out of the office for a few breems a loud explosion rocked the surrounding area.
And the prison went up in flames.
By the end of the orn, the newsfeeds claimed that the attack had been by a group of extremists from Kaon, who had claimed that the prison was wrongfully imprisoning mechs. A point that Jazz could agree with as his difficulties trying to help Barricade lent itself well to that theory.
A few orns later, a list of “violent and dangerous” criminals who had escaped from the prison was released, cautioning the citizens of Praxus.
Barricade was not on the list, which could mean one of several things. One, he had escaped, but was not what the enforcers were classifying as “violent and dangerous”, which was definitely a good thing. Two, Barricade had been one of the prisoners who had been recaptured already; the second best option, though it put Jazz back at square one. Three, Barricade was not listed because he had died in the attack.
Jazz stared, unseeing, out of his apartment’s window, his fingers tapping a quick staccato on the arm of his chair.
“Let’s hope it’s one of the first two,” Jazz said his voice quiet. He then stood and began to get ready for the orn’s work shift.
At least with those two outcomes, Barricade was still alive.
===
At the sight of the incoming Decepticons, Sunstreaker was one of the first to react, pulling his gun out of subspace and firing, working his way from the stands to cover for the mechs that were on the track.
Sunstreaker could admit that it was a good tactic, concentrating the beginning of the attack on those racing, trying to take both the SIC and TIC out. So far, it looked like they might have been successful, which meant that the first order of business was to clear a path for Ratchet to get through. Sunstreaker absently noted Bluestreak’s location, standing guard over the evacuating humans while firing at the Decepticons.
As the mechs that had been on the track were those who were hit first in the surprise attack, Sunstreaker began to feel a muted horror begin to spread as minutes began to go by, and they had yet to hear anything from the mechs that had been obscured by the smoke. It was only quelled when Blaster cleared the airwaves from Soundwave’s interference and Prowl’s level voice was heard giving orders.
Sunstreaker punched Wildrider in the faceplate as Sideswipe came bounding out of the smoke, jump kicking the Decepticon away from him and his brother.
Sideswipe’s grin was wide as he locked optics with his twin.
“Ready for some jet judo, bro?” Sideswipe asked, and Sunstreaker’s return smile was more feral than his brother’s.
“Sounds fun,” Sunstreaker said, his optics scanning the sky. “I’ll take Skywarp.”
“Sure thing,” Sideswipe answered, grabbing the yellow mech and activating his jetpack, to boost into the sky.
Sideswipe could not have timed it any better, getting close enough to Skywarp that Sunstreaker was able to leap away and grab a purple wing tip just before the mech teleported.
It was always a rush hanging onto a mech that was simultaneously teleporting and performing all sorts of air maneuvers that was trying to get Sunstreaker to lose his grip and fall to the ground. Just when Sunstreaker had managed to move his grip to a more stable location on Skywarp’s chassis, Bluestreak’s name over his comm. line drew his attention to what was going on on the ground below.
Bluestreak was face-down on the ground with black smoke coming out from his doorwings. Bumblebee was calling for Ratchet over the comm. line, but they were still a mech short with Decepticons zeroing in on the weakened unit. Automatically Sunstreaker’s servos went about manipulating Skywarp’s wings to force him into a full dive towards the ground near the group of mechs to provide the needed back up and covering fire for Ratchet.
Sunstreaker was reassured by what he saw of the damage on Bluestreak, as it certainly did not look life threatening, but the younger mech was out, and considering how sensitive Sunstreaker knew doorwings were, it was probably for the best. So Sunstreaker focused on the battle, knowing he would have time to fret over the grey mech later, right then there were Decepticons to kill.
===
Jazz walked up the ramp into Skyfire’s hold, not willing to risk Ratchet’s wrath to chance transforming and driving back to the Ark. While the initial damage he had taken had hampered his transformation ability and caused his systems to reset, he had been fine enough to participate in the battle. Though his transformation to root mode before had been a choice between more damage from transforming or worse damage from the Decepticons firing on him sitting there in his alt mode. He chose more damage with the benefit of fighting back, which given the situation was understandable, but to do so again, needlessly? Jazz could do without the extra dents.
Jazz watched as Ratchet loaded Bluestreak up, strapping the gunner face down in order to not further damage the gunner’s doorwings. Prowl sat down next to Bluestreak once Ratchet moved aside, as there was nothing the medic could really do until they got back.
Once settled, Prowl glanced around the hold, his optics catching Jazz’s visor across from him. Jazz felt Prowl look him over for injuries.
“I’m fine,” Jazz said.
Prowl looked up somewhat startled at having been caught.
“Are you sure? You took a pretty bad hit on the track,” Prowl responded, and Jazz forced a smile, trying to make it as easy as he could.
“Nothin’ Ratch can’t fix,” Jazz said, only relaxing once Prowl seemed satisfied and turned his attention back to his injured brother.
Which, if Jazz really thought about it, it didn’t make sense, or at least it wasn’t in line with his recent thoughts about Prowl. Because while Prowl was a loyal and devoted caretaker to Bluestreak, Barricade had never mentioned a brother, or family of any sort. So there was no way that Prowl could be Barricade, no way at all, even if they raced the same, used the same tricks, and both had mentioned at some point that in Praxus it was expected for a mech to race on the tracks.
Jazz resisted the urge to curl into himself as thoughts and memories assaulted him. There was no need to worry anyone over something that Jazz should have gotten over a lifetime ago, so he offlined his visor, letting his helm rest against the wall of Skyfire’s hold, silencing his vocalizer and tried to comfort himself with reality.
The reality was, Praxus had been a large city, with a million native mechs, so it was not completely unlikely that the abilities and likes of some mechs were similar to others. The reality was that Prowl was a devoted older brother who raised Bluestreak and would not have abandoned and ignored his existence for more than 10 vorns being the lackey of a crime boss.
The reality was that Barricade was dead.
===
Sunstreaker waited outside of the medbay, watching the door passively while taking stock of the damage his finish had taken, calculating how much work it was going to take to get back its normal shine. He ignored everyone else who passed by, they were unimportant, and in Cliffjumper’s case, stupid, for going into Ratchet’s layer uninjured post-battle. Sunstreaker knew better than to risk what was left of his finish to go into the medbay and get in the way of the medics trying to save the ungrateful slaggers’ chassis. The only time Ratchet found it somewhat excusable was when it was a close family member or lover, neither of which was there in Sunstreaker’s case.
When the medbay door opened and Prowl stepped out into the hallway, Sunstreaker looked up from examining a large scrape on his leg.
“Prowl.”
“Sunstreaker,” Prowl answered, and glanced over Sunstreaker. “How are you functioning?”
“As well as anyone can expect with a slagged up finish,” Sunstreaker said, and then took a closer look at Prowl, noting the exhaustion dimmed optics and slightly lowered doorwings. “You look like you could use a good waxing too.”
Prowl doorwings twitched in surprise, and could not help at looking himself over.
“I suppose so,” Prowl replied with a bemused smile. “Though I hope you forgive me for putting off that waxing in favor of a good recharge.”
“Whatever.” Sunstreaker shrugged, mentally cringing at his own flippantness as he followed Prowl down the hall.
Prowl remained silent, letting Sunstreaker gather the words that he wanted to say with the calm patience that the tactician was so good at.
“Prowl, I’m sorry.”
Prowl looked back at Sunstreaker.
“What for?”
“Bluestreak got hurt, because I wasn’t able to get the seekers down fast enough,” Sunstreaker ground out, and Prowl shook his head.
“Bluestreak was one of those tasked with keeping track of the humans, you chose to help cover the command element and then took to the sky to ground the seekers, both were logical responses to the situation. So it is not anyone’s fault that Bluestreak, or any of the others, are injured today other than the mechs that attacked them. It is more of mine and Optimus’ shortcomings that we did not have a working plan in case what happened today occurred.”
Sunstreaker vented loudly.
“I told you that I’d protect your brother like you were protecting mine, it may have been a long time ago, but I still stand by that, Prowl,” Sunstreaker said, his voice quiet.
“For 10 vorns you were the best protector that Bluestreak could have had, and for that I’m thankful that you were there when I couldn’t be. But I will not hold you to a promise that was essentially over the moment Crasher was arrested,” Prowl answered, his voice equally soft.
Neither mech noticed the flaring visor of the mech around the corner that turned and walked away with shaking servos.
“Go fix your finish and recharge Sunstreaker, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Prowl said once they reached his quarters.
Sunstreaker turned to walk away, but paused as a thought occurred to him.
“You know, back in Praxus, Sideswipe kept saying that every time you raced with Jazz, something bad ended up happening. Looks like that’s happening here too.”
“Unfortunately that does sound accurate,” Prowl said a hollow laugh escaping the black and white mech. “Goodnight, Sunstreaker.”
“’Night,” Sunstreaker replied, watching the door close.
And the yellow mech wondered again, for the countless time, how much had he and his twin messed up the life of the first mech who had ever actually listened and cared enough to help them?